Response to comment

A reader left a comment in regards to a "previous post". and I felt that it merited a comment. The reader seemed to think I was somehow nostalgic for the past. I am not! The intent of the post wasn't to show achievements since the 1950's. While I wouldn't ask for a government like P. Jimenez to ever be in power, I think one should at least recognize that most of the major infrastructure and housing projects were done during this time. It wasn't until the late 60's and 70's when Venezuela made the next major infrastructure and modernization investment. Of course it would be naive to say that the investments during this time were transparent, with out favors, or that no corruption occurred. On the contrary investments during this time were full of pet projects that lead to nothing more than empty warehouse or manufacturing facilities that never produced a single product. Hence these some of the reason Chavez is in power.

It is also worth noting that the governments after the oil boom of the 1970's seemed to invest very little in infrastructure. Due primarily because of the poor economic decisions and a lack of economic diversity.

Something that most Chavez supporters seem to think is that, we in the opposition what venezuela to return to the way things were before Chavez. That we are somehow nostalgic for the inefficiencies, corruption, lack of government transparency, injustice, etc... I would like to be clear, I for one am not, but I am convinced that Chavez is not the savior, but simply another bad president that is worse than any of the previous ones for the simple fact that he is socially resentful, that has no intent on handing over power peacefully, and has made things worse for Venezuelans. Again for all their faults, the previous governments did do some positive things. To digress I would like to say that despite some good things (at least ideas and intentions) the Chavez government has been highly inefficient in its spending and has little to no infrastructure to show for all the billions in "income".

Venezuela seems to have had two "major leaps forward" the first during Perez Jimenez and the second during Perez in the 1970's. It is unfortunate that Chavez hasn't been able to utilize his income better during the current oil boom. Hopefully one day we can have a government that is able to right all the wrongs of the previous and current governments. In the mean time I and the rest of us in the opposition will continue our fight so that day comes.

Live from Zulia

So yesterday, while doing some desk work I decided to torture myself and listen to the Venezuelan radio. To my surprise (sarcasm intended) Chavez was holding a cadena while visiting the state of Zulia. All in all I listened for about 30 minutes, but lucky me I happened to catch the best parts. Here is a summary of the weekly/daily state of the Union address by Chavez

When I first tuned in Chavez was talking to a woman presumably she was very humble and without much (in the form of money). In short she spoke about her small little plot of land and the things she has growing on it, while Chavez kept asking if you can grow this and that and her reply was "yes you can".

Then he went on to say that there is nothing more dignified than someone who has their own home. While I fully agree with this I can not help to know that government home construction is averaging ~40,000 homes a year far below the average of the worst government of the past 50 years. Moreover, I would like to suggest that there is nothing more dignified than creating employment opportunities, credits and low interest rate loans for the poor so they can buy their own home. Again the Chavez government has failed to act on any of these.

About 15 minutes into the show things began to get interesting.

At this point the topic switches over to a water, so a man (presumably knowledgeable in the field) begins telling Chavez about how the water table is to salty. Then Chavez asks for some numbers and statistics so the man goes into the level of salinity of the water and amount of water available, after about a minute Chavez interrupts him again and says: "I'm sorry I wasn't paying attenting I was thinking about something else." Personally I was shocked by this blatant statement. Then Chavez says "let me tell you something" and proceeds to talk about his travels to Saudia Arabia and how they get all their water from the ocean and desalt it. Followed by Chavez saying they should build a desalinization plant in Zulia. At this point Chavez gets agitated (for some reason) and goes on a tangent criticizing Zulias governor (Manuel Rosales). He begins by saying that Zulia is not an independent state and that he has to reign in the state for independence. All the while criticizing and making accusations against Rosales, then denounces imperialism and colonialism. After a couple of minutes Chavez manages to do a 180 and says that Venezuela should invent, engineer, and manufacture portable desalinization plants for the Venezuelan people, with him saying "I have seen them, we should invent them". I have to hand it to Chavez he does know how to talk and I mean that in more than one way.

Personally, I don't know where to begin to tell Chavez the problem with this idea and how it isn't as simple as inventing, manufacturing and building a portable desalinization machine. Although, apparently the "water expert" didn't either, since he politely said ok and that was the end of the topic. I do think the the water expert was still in a state of shock over Chavez's blunt comment and outburst, I sure was.

The last 5 minutes is the part that made headlines with Chavez's comments concerning the Falkland Islands. This is where the shit hit the fan, where he continued his rant on imperialism and the war between the UK and Argentina, etc... Followed with more of Chavez's verbal diarrhea, which prompted to stop listening out of fear that my IQ would start to drop or I might hit someone.

Chavez's spending spree

This was published in El Nacional, today I think. I will let you judge for yourself whether the spending is worth it for the Venezuelan people.